The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How does Burnout Develop? Psychologist Insights with Dr Claire Plumbly

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Links:📚 Check out Dr Claire's Book on Burnout: How to manage your nervous system before it manages you: https://amzn.to/3W9nsgi 📲Connect with Dr Claire here: https://www.tiktok.com/@drclaireplumbly https://www.instagram.com/drclaireplumbly/ 🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page. Hashtags: #aspiringpsychologist #dclinpsy #psychology #assistantpsychologist #psychologycareers #podcast #psychologypodcast #clinicalpsychologist #mentalhealth #traineeclinicalpsychologist #clinicalpsychology #drmariannetrent #mentalhealthprofessional #gettingqualified #mentalhealthprofessionals #traineepwp #mdt #qualifiedpsychologist #traineepsychologist #aspiringpsychologists #wellbeing

Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. How would you know if you were heading towards burnout? What would the signs and symptoms

be? Might other people notice before you? And once you recognize the signs and symptoms, how can you step back to make positive changes for yourself or for those that you care about? That is the topic of this brilliant podcast episode, which is a special on burnout. I hope you find it so useful. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, it's pretty on brand today that I am in my gym gear and I am off ready to go personal training. It's one of the things that keeps me really well. And it's one of the top tips that's mentioned towards the end of this episode, which is one of our special Burnout Bites series, which is beautifully presented for us by Dr. Claire Plumley. Claire is the author of a brilliant new book all about burnout and how to reduce it. There are details in the show notes. This is episode four of the Burnout Bites series. There is no need to watch them all, but they do piece

together beautifully to help you to really thicken your understanding of what burnout is and how to avoid it in yourself and those that you care about or work with. Hopefully we care about the people we work with too. Let's dive in and see what these stages are, how we can notice what burnout is as it develops so we can stand a chance of catching it in its tracks. I will catch you on the other side. Hello and welcome back to Burnout Bites. This is episode four of a short series of six episodes designed to help you understand more about burnout so you can look after yourself and anyone in your clinical practice as well. My name is Dr. Claire Plumley and I'm a clinical psychologist. I

specialize in trauma, anxiety and burnout and I run my own practice in Taunton, Somerset and online with a group of associates. Recently I've written a book available now you can link to it in the show notes it's called Burnout how to manage your nervous system before it manages you. In today's episode I'm going to bring you the five stage model of burnout. Now there are different stage models as there are for most different concepts different ways of understanding things including a 12 model, which I don't talk about in my book because my mind boggles a bit if I try to wrap my head around remembering 12 stages. I find this five-stage model a really handy way of understanding it. It depicts the progression from no stress into stress, chronic stress, and then tipping into burnout. This is a

model that was developed in 1980 and was first written about in a nursing magazine, an occupational nursing magazine by Robert Van Inger and Dr. James Spagli. They were trying to understand the progression from job satisfaction into job disillusionment and how this was often followed by, as they were stating in this article, physical and mental health difficulties, which then just swamp and overwhelm the individual. It's a fairly well referenced model in regards to burnout these days. Hold in mind that stage models can oversimplify things and they can suggest a linear trajectory through each stage into the next one and often we might oscillate between them but I'm sure you would have that awareness of stage models anyway. So stage one is the honeymoon stage. I'm going to go through each stage and I'm going to explain what it is and the signs that you might be here. And then we can think at the end of this episode about what you might need to do at each point. Stage one is the honeymoon stage. At this

stage, you generally feel pretty satisfied with what you're doing and achieving. Energy levels and enthusiasm might be high. So you're driven, maybe enthusiastic, and you wouldn't necessarily think of yourself as potentially burning out because you don't have any of the signs of distress. So actually, you're not burning out right now. However, it's important to know about this stage because you can prevent yourself progressing to the next one with some gentle interventions. I tend to notice when I'm like this, I'm really struggling to pace myself. I'm often very, very excited by projects. I'm saying yes to everything because I want a bite of every pie. So you'll recognize you're here if you feel any of what I've just described, that kind of enthusiasm.

You're saying yes to too many things. You're kind of excited and rushing and you're feeling really positive about outcomes. Not really think about the practicalities of how you will reach them. You might also start to drop other things in the pursuit of these goals. So for example, your boring admin, life admin, hobbies or social connections, and maybe your boundaries between work and life start to get blurred. So for example, when I was doing my studying to become a psychologist, often I found at every moment of the day, I had a workbook in my bag to pull out and read and these days of course we have our phones with us we can easily dip into reading something

or checking emails so it's all of this feels kind of almost easy and like you're really wanting to get into work and so boundaries are very hard to kind of hold in place. Stage two this is the onset of stress so projects might start to lose their shine as the reality of the demand start to kick in. So there are some very common external stresses at this point that might highlight this stage as being relevant to you. So this is when we might notice having too much to do or that we're being deprived of having agency choosing how we want to do those things. So our choice feels curtailed. You might feel criticised or like your efforts aren't actually being rewarded or appreciated. Could feel like

you're being unfairly treated or that you're unsupported in everything you're doing. If you don't have any buffers to stress in place, which of course if you remember in stage one might have gone if you're not having those boundaries and that downtime, those social connections, then your body might start to react even more with the stress responses. So signs that you are here, you're getting more irritable or impatient on issues that are pretty minor, like being asked a favor or someone's walking too slowly, or my classic is when I'm queuing. Your brain might start to race, or you might start to find the worries are really hard to dismiss. You might find it hard to switch off. So you might want to rest or sleep, start to find the worries are really hard to dismiss. You might find it hard to

switch off. So you might want to rest or sleep but you're finding that really challenging to do. And as before you're neglecting things, maybe your personal needs. You're finding it hard to tune into your stress, maybe rushing around and not really noticing how tense or overwhelmed you're beginning to feel. Stage three. This is chronic stress. So your initial stress isn't addressed. If your initial stress feeling isn't addressed, the longer lasting physical impacts of stress start to take their toll. So you might start to notice even more signs that you are in that fight or flight part of your nervous system. So you're overreacting really quickly with anxiety or annoyance. You might have even panic

attacks or bouts of irritability or just feeling almost paralyzed and frozen. You might get physical signs, you know, headaches, back pain, you might start catching colds more easily or have reduced libido. And the cognitive signs of this difficulty making decisions, difficulty focusing or concentrating or something. So classic is going into a room, forgetting why you're there, being halfway through a task and getting distracted, moving on. So you have lots of unfinished tasks. And your coping for stress that's unhealthy might be more obvious at this point. So classic for me might be doom scrolling, procrastinating, seeking more reassurance, like checking in with my other half or with colleagues,

like if everything's okay. And as I mentioned in a previous episode, a classic for me is also impulse online shopping, of course, but that might look different for different people. I also tend to find I go into a bit of a zone out place where I'm, it's also very common to really struggle to switch your body into a mode where you can rest. So this can lead to real extra difficulties falling asleep or staying asleep. Many people find it really hard to admit to themselves just how stressed they are. Stage four is when we actually reach burnout. But in my mind, this is high functioning burnout. So you might be able to still do all the things that you normally do, but you're starting to feel

just wrung out. So perhaps decisions just feel almost like overwhelming, like you just can't make any. And this could be simple things like what to have for dinner, or whether you're going to attend something or not. You might also find that you're comparing yourself unfavorably to others. So this is that difficulty with personal accomplishment. We tend to assume that others are looking down on us, we feel less able and confident in our abilities. And we can't identify with others who are really at the same level as us because they just feel like they're on a different planet. So again, all the same signs here as the stress before.

But everything, if you imagine your body is kind of whispering to you before, everything's dialed up. So those aches and pains and niggles are harder to distract yourself from. You might be feeling even more, you might be noticing even more frequent and louder types of negative thoughts about how critical you are of yourself, your abilities, about others not being there for you, feeling unable to reach out for that support. You might be making more mistakes. So cognitively, you're less sharp and efficient and able. You might be forgetting to do things or ordering the wrong items and this is where you might also begin to feel really cynical or resentful towards others or the work you're being asked to do mood can also drop so

you might begin to feel really trapped unable to imagine how to break free this is where you get those escapism thoughts about how you could actually escape from what you're doing. Now, transition points in the day are often a good marker of this. If you think about the moment you finish doing something like for me, when I'm closing my computer down to go and get the kids from school, that's a classic transition where I really notice this. You know, I've been in a mode where I'm trying to do thinking, access kind of clever thought

stuff from writing or working on something. And then I've got to kind of go drive, get the kids. And I often find I have a telltale sign that I'm in this kind of stage of burnout when I get to the school and feel really irritable, unable to really connect with where I am and what I'm doing. So the kids might be asking me very reasonable questions about, you know, what we're doing after school. And I kind of feel like they're annoying little flies buzzing around me, but really in my own head. So this transition point is maybe something for you to think about as well, you struggling to initiate the next activity efficiently, you know, this could be starting or finishing work, but it could either be other things like mealtimes, or when you put the kids

to bed, that's another time for me, you know, rather than sitting and feeling like I can snuggle with them and read, I feel like irritable that I just want to get through bedtime really quickly, and I'm not able to really engage with it. The final thing I just want to add to this as a sign is that you might feel really alone with all of this as well. So hold on to that feeling. Right, number five, we've got habitual burnout now. This is the burnout that is much more established and set in. All those signs of distress might be really shouting at you now. And clinical burnout is when your body just forces that stop. It's been asking and begging you to stop and you haven't. And so now it just says, I'm not proceeding anymore. So

you might have this experience of struggling to get out of bed. I've also worked with people who have had non-epileptic attack disorder, so seizures that aren't explained by epilepsy or panic attacks that just completely floor them. I've also had people who haven't been able to speak, who struggle to find words or actually talk. So there could be all sorts of different, very intense physical signs of stress. And this is when often people are signed off work sick for a period of time. So I hope the message is coming across

from this stage model, that it's more helpful to think of burnout on a continuum rather than a I either have it or I don't type of concept. What we use to continuums in psychology. So I'm sure this isn't a new idea. The important thing is to think about what you need at each stage. Really early on when you don't have any signs of burnout, but you're not pacing yourself. This is something to think about. This boom bust pattern is really common for people. What can you do to prevent this happening? Are

there people in your team, you know, a partner, a colleague who can help you stay in check? So for example, my husband knows I get like this. And he's often the one saying, have you thought about X? So often just answering, asking me that question, we've got this agreement that he will do this for me, helps me to kind of check myself out. Actually, I'm not going to have time to say, do all these things I'm saying yes to. So pacing yourself, and then also making sure you're you've got things in your diary that you just focus on and prioritize, even sure you're you've got things in your diary that you just focus on and prioritize even when you don't feel like doing it for your self-care so that might be the exercise class it might be a telephone call with a friend making sure that these even if

they're just shorter you're still doing something along those lines because those are the things are going to keep you protected and they help you keep perspective as well because when we just throw ourselves into work, we do more and more work, that perspective is really hard to hold on to. Of course, later up the stages, two, three and four, this is all where we need to tend to our physiology, tend to our nervous system to keep it soothed and managed

and little pockets throughout the day are the best time to do that. So I'm going to focus on that in the next episode with you. In the final stage of burnout, this is where you need a proper break from work. If you can set things up or ask someone to help you set up, getting everything delegated so that you're not having to do things anymore. You know, often if people are off work, that starts to happen anyway. But it is trickier if your burnout is linked to, you you know being a student or being at home with your family it's important to let people know that you're not able to do all of the usual activities and tasks that you usually are able to it takes time to recover from clinical burnout where your body is forced to stop this is highly traumatic for the body and it also can be traumatic for you to have this idea

that I'm not infallible. I do have a pause point where I can't go beyond. So you need to be really gentle with yourself at this point and encourage other people around you to learn about burnout so that they can be gentle with you too. You don't want to be trying to do this all on your own. Maybe they could read my book. That might be helpful for them to understand it so that they can support you. This brings us to the end of this episode. We're going to go a little more into detail in the practicalities of pacing and how to do that in the transition points of your day in the next episode. So come back to episode five for more on this. Oh gosh, thank you so much, Dr. Claire. How wonderful to have that broken down into those

stages that makes it so accessible and so memorable so that we can start to notice what our patterns are. But I love the idea of giving people permission in your world to help you stay on track, to keep you as well as possible. And I absolutely resonate with some of that kind of run out of window of tolerance stuff. And I absolutely resonate with some of that running out of patience and tolerance at the end of the day and not being able to fully immerse myself in what can be quite a special time, putting my children to bed. Sometimes I'm just like, I just need you gone. I just need you in bed so that I can just sit and kind of decompress a bit. I would love to know what this episode has evoked for you. Please do let me know by dropping me a comment if you're

watching on YouTube. If you are listening on Spotify, you can drop comments in there too. And please do come and let me know on socials. I am Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. I'm sure Dr. Claire would also love to know what you think too. She is Dr. Claire Plumley everywhere. Come and join the free Facebook group, the Aspiring Psychologist Community with Dr. Marianne Trent. That is the exclusive home of the Marianne's Motivation and Mindset free sessions that happen weekly. If you are loving this special series on burnout, please do consider grabbing a copy of Claire's book, which you can do by searching in the show notes.

We cover loads of brilliant topics in the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can join for just £30 a month with no minimum term. There's also really great reflections and ideas for career options in both the Clinical Psychologist Collective book and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book. And if you've already read either or both of those, please do consider leaving me a review on both Amazon and Goodreads as it really does help us to reach a wider audience. If you are a fan of any podcast, this one especially, please do subscribe. Please do follow the show as it's the kindest free thing you can do for any podcaster that you really rate. The next episode will be available for you from 10 a.m on saturday on youtube and from 6 a.m on monday wherever you get your podcasts thank you so much for being part of my world and i will see

you very soon take care if you're looking to become a psychologist then let this be your guide with this podcast that you're sad to be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist podcast with dr marianne My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind of filled me with confidence that,

no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me you will not put the book down once you start.